Green: it's just a color. Yet somehow, it's become a verb, a way of life, even a religion.

Of course, if you live in any corner of the western world, you know what “going green” refers to. This expanding effort now saturates every facet of the American life. Whether branded on the bottom of your grocery bag, preached about by a slew of celebrities in precious, seven-second commercial slots, or drawn out in an article, blog, magazine, tweet or press release, the “Green initiative” has become as ubiquitous as the copyright “C.”

So far, I have in no way advocated for this “green initiative.” After all, it's easy to cynically crank out a critique of anything “Politically Correct” (or as I call it, corporately, politically and culturally, popularly correct). However, this article is not intended to act as Norma Rae taking a stand against corruption, because the message behind this mass commercial force is actually pure. This message is brought to you by international scientists and diplomats.

Sunday is World Environment Day. Yes, another one of those days when a meaningless “green” will be heard more often than “hello.” But it's not a promotional ploy.

While an objective of World Environment Day is indeed to raise global awareness, it ultimately seeks a global action. This year India will host World Environment Day, which is just a name for the high-profile event for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its satellite program: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD).

The true intent of this World Environment Day is to convene international ambassadors and forge a proactive, worldwide strategy for the upcoming year, not to hold hands in a circle and do trust falls. The want for awareness comes from diplomatic efforts to inform citizens who in turn, it is hoped, pressure private and government businesses into adhering to the environmentally protective standards set at the convention.

And those environmentally protective standards aren't set to save cuddly animals, either. Primarily, the focus of the UNEP World Environment Day is to protect the benefits humans receive from the environment. As this year's theme is “Forests: Nature at Your Service,” the focus will be on informing citizens about the impact of deforestation. The concern is the rate at which deforestation occurs and its effect on our drinking water and our essential resources. This event is just the crier and the scribe of a preventative effort. No convention can pass out brochures and simply save the world; so the UNEP is on its knees, begging for us to pay attention and then act.

We have a problem, people. It's a rapidly approaching one. The rate of the world's population growth coupled the increasing per capita rate at which we are consuming products of the forest (and inversely depleting forest resources essential to human survival) is a growing cause for alarm. What we have is a tsunami charging under a seemingly calm sea; so we must do what we can now to avoid future panic. Because one way or another, a change is going to come.

Learn more about World Environment Day and the UNEP's everyday efforts at www.unep.org/wed.